


nuisance with no sense

by halleycomets



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Hate Kissing?, M/M, happy fourth of july lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 16:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7394785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halleycomets/pseuds/halleycomets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander stayed his hands. Adams looked back up at him, this time with something different -- fear, Alex knew. Their bodies were separated only by the thin braided rope. DO NOT CROSS. Past and present, forbidden and permitted, hatred and attraction -- it was all liminal here, where subservience and independence had intersected a little over 200 years ago.</p><p>Alexander was annoyed enough just having to be in Philadelphia to tip the scales and try the odds. It was 50/50 any way you threw it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nuisance with no sense

**Author's Note:**

> uh so i didnt end up finishing this by the fourth of july but here is my irreverent independence day act [EDIT: LOOK AT THE WORD COUNT]
> 
> im here to educate once again about a historically accurate scene that no one ever talks about anymore in schools and that's the time that alexander hamilton made out with john adams in independence hall in philadelphia on the fourth of july. i just cant believe that these two remarkably similar and annoying men loathed each other so much but i actually just dont respect either of these people and i know this is literally the last thing they would want written about them so i went ahead and did the honors
> 
> (this also should offer some insight into some really mean letters adams and abigail exchanged re: hamilton, because of course, this really did happen, would i lie to you,)
> 
> anyway this was GONNA be another Funny One like my classic crack "sick after writing five," but there ended up being some interesting power discourse and character study here so it's actually a little bit meaty. it was also gonna be filthier but i got tired. giamatti adams was the template but like, feel free to cast at will.
> 
> i love comments and kudos even on this sort of nonsense, fuck the founding fathers, thank you for reading

The assembly room at Independence Hall was empty as the Secretary of the Treasury strode around it, drawing the tips of his fingers over the back of each fragile chair. He wasn’t supposed to be beyond the barrier separating the legion of fourth-of-July tourists from the hallowed ground where independence had been declared -- he hadn’t even been a part of the initiative to revive it as a place of modern legislation, several committees sitting in the founders’ seats in a special ceremony to argue the reparation of the country after Vietnam.  He was a guest in Philadelphia, part of President Washington’s entourage he brought with him to speak on Independence Day.

The park service had cleared the building for the next few hours while the cabinet was present; Washington was somewhere, rehearsing. Alexander had been asked to edit the speech back in DC -- an exciting prospect, after having his nose pressed to nothing but financial legislation for a year with not enough time to read or write what he wanted -- but his influence had ended up being minimal. He was just  _ here _ , an ornament to flank Washington while he spoke, no wife, no children, no friends, only a cabinet who didn’t care for him. He could be celebrating the fourth at home in New York. He could be at Herc’s roof barbecue watching the city parade, he could be at the Schuyler mansion upstate having a craft beer, watching his in-laws play croquet or bocce or some other rich person’s lawn game, throwing a ball with his little boy. 

Negativity pulsed behind his skin, and he began to notice just how stuffy it was in the building as his bad attitude congealed with the temperature under his collar. He yanked open two buttons and fluttered his shirt, trying to air out his neck and chest.

“Just what do you think you're doing,” came a hard interjection and a sharp stride trundling over the centuried wooden floor. 

Alexander Hamilton’s voice wasn’t exactly sonorous. It came high-pitched right out of his beak, it cracked over itself and its volume was rarely lower than a soft holler; it was earnest and compelling but objectively obnoxious. He had only one rival in the whole cabinet for least pleasing to the ear.

He looked contemptuously over his shoulder, gripping the sides of his shirt. As far as accents were concerned, he figured, Boston  _ had  _ to be worse than New York.

“Gimme a break, John, I didn’t know anyone was around.”

“There are barriers, Hamilton. There are ropes, there are signs, there are at least a dozen indicators at any given location in this room that you should not be in there, touching things!” John Adams folded his hands on the post stringing the rope Alexander had walked under moments before. “I had a feeling you’d be doing something inappropriate in here when I found out you had gone off on your own, and  _ well _ .” He pursed his lips, thin and severe. “I long for the day you prove me wrong, I really do.”

Alexander didn’t know what had come first, chicken or egg, Adams’s hatred of him or vice versa. From the moment they had encountered one another in a professional capacity, they had butted heads in everything but party affiliation, not close enough or respectful enough of each other to be rivals but with a pungent animosity between them at all times. Maybe the worst thing about it was that Alexander didn’t understand what exactly Adams’s problem with him was -- was he racist? Was he jealous? He had plenty of his own reasons to hate Adams catalogued (loud, disrespectful of others, obtuse to social nuance, a complete buzzkill), but the greatest of them could very well have been the way he treated him. Like he was a snot-nosed kid in a suit who had somehow snuck away from the White House tour and was posing as a member of the cabinet, and only John Adams was wise. 

The heat spread from his neck to his fingers. It bubbled to his head. He set his jaw and looked down.

“ _ That’s  _ just not true.”

Adams blinked. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“You spend every minute in my vicinity waiting for me to fail, you have since I was appointed.” He drew a thumb across his damp forehead and faced Adams head on, shirt still half open. “You come in here like I’m a twelve-year-old you caught jerking off in the assembly room; I’m the Secretary of the Treasury for fucks sake! I’ve earned a little contact with the history of this country!” 

Adams laughed at him, without sympathy. “It’s always  _ drama  _ with you.”

He huffed. “What do you mean?”

“Look at you, Hamilton.” Adams stretched out a hand and scanned him head to toe. “With your long hair. Chest hanging out. Young man. You think you’re a rock star.” 

Alexander felt his eyes on him, hard and appraising and gleaming behind thick rimmed glasses with uncompromising intelligence. Adams was balding, pasty and jowly, and had grown a beard to cover what Alex suspected to be a weak chin. Those eyes were one of the least ugly features of the man -- in fact, they were very compelling. They had never argued this close before, or alone. He met the eyes when they returned to his face. 

“I _ ‘come in here’ _ telling you to get out of a clearly gated-off space,” Adams continued, “and you throw your back against the wall and have a tantrum, creating this false analogy with the way I’ve criticized your behavior towards Congress.” He took a small step forward. “As for the ‘history of this country,’ I sat in that seat-” he pointed. “That seat, and  _ presided over lawmaking _ , as I was permitted, and it was the highlight of my life-”

“So you do care about your job from time to time, that’s news to me!”

“You _ - _ ” He went quiet a moment, composing himself like a ruffled pigeon. He leaned into the rope, just inches away from Alexander. They were small men in a cabinet full of tall ones, level with one another. “You think I treat you like a child, it’s because you act like one. And an improprietous one at that, button your shirt.”

Alexander cocked his head in defiance. “It’s 103 degrees.”

“You’re a member of the United States Presidential Cabinet, you represent this administration.”

“There’s no one  _ here _ -”

“You have  _ no _ regard for decorum-”

“God! Shut up!”

“ _ Bastard! _ ” Adams jerked forward and grabbed at the open buttons, his knuckles stopping sharp against Alexander’s bare chest; he jerked him closer by his shirt, pulling one lapel over the other, holding him there as he worked the buttons together. 

Alexander didn’t flinch. He raised his chin. He watched those sharp eyes, a lawyer’s eyes, darting over his shoulders, minding the invisible jury of ghosts in Independence Hall that would pass judgment on how close they were now.  _ Bastard,  _ he said. Maybe that was it. Alexander could understand how illegitimacy might frighten a man like Adams, whose morality and sense of family were the backbone of his career and his life. People didn’t  _ like  _ Adams, but by God, he had principles. Alexander’s existence and success in spite of it violated them. He was an anomaly. An outlier.

“You don’t like things you don’t understand, do you.”

Adams looked at him square. “I don’t like disruptions.”

Alexander squinted. “You don’t think I deserve what I have. You’ve never had to work as hard as I have in your life, for anything.”

Adams’s grip tightened. “What I don’t understand, Hamilton, is how God could stand to place a mind like yours in the thick skull of a bawdy, vulgar, fundamentally immoral little man like you.”

They stood for a minute, inches away from one another, eyes locked. Alexander’s gaze flickered once to that taut, severe mouth. Adams jerked him again. He licked his drying lips.    


“That’s one way to tell somebody you think he’s brilliant.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Adams started to let go with a push. 

Alexander stayed his hands. Adams looked back up at him, this time with something different -- fear, Alex knew. Their bodies were separated only by the thin braided rope.  **DO NOT CROSS.** Past and present, forbidden and permitted, hatred and attraction -- it was all liminal here, where subservience and independence had intersected a little over 200 years ago.

Alexander was annoyed enough just having to be in Philadelphia to try his hand. He would tip the scales and play the odds. It was 50/50 any way you threw it.

He leaned in and pressed his mouth to Adams’s, first soft, then strong, coaxing a response out of what he figured was stunned paralysis. What he got was a shudder. That was fine. Revulsion had been the aphrodisiac he was playing with all along. 

The tongue surprised him -- his brows raised as he felt it press into his mouth. Bristles scraped against one another as their faces closed the gap, and Alexander felt one of the hands gripping his lapel loosen under his and slip between the buttons it had yet to close to touch his skin. His chest rose, and the fingertips drew away, as if they had awoken someone sleeping. Alexander tucked them back in, undoing the work down a button more, pressing himself into the pole that separated them until he could feel the heat coming off John Adams in damp, panicked waves. Adams’s glasses ground into his cheekbones -- he kissed him anyway, precise and determined, grazing his lower lip with hungry teeth, enticing his tongue with an open mouth and hollow cheeks.

Adams tore himself free and stumbled back, touching his lip as it pulled from Alexander’s teeth. Alexander felt like a human bear trap -- Adams was intact, but a more abstract kind of blood had been drawn, and it was still on Alex’s mouth. 

It was validated by the way Adams looked at him.

“You are…” Adams’s mouth trembled, he blinked, dazed and terrified. “A really. Reprehensible person.”

“I won’t tell a soul, Mr. Adams.”

“You’ll pay for this.”

“I’m waiting.”

Adams dashed a hand across his mouth, disgust and embarrassment replacing the fear and wonderment in a froth. Alexander watched him retreat from whence he came, rubbing his chest, cracking a third of a grin. Maybe Philadelphia wasn’t a waste. He had earned a victory here -- he never was one for conventional means. Guerilla tactics were best against those with the most fortitude.

He strode up to the platform, stood beside the rising sun armchair, traced it with his thumb.

  
Just for a moment, he took a seat.

**Author's Note:**

> I LOVE FEEDBACK!


End file.
